Quotes about Tones

I would have artists be convinced that the supreme skill and art in painting consists in knowing how to use black and white... because it is light and shade that make objects appear in relief. (Leon Battista Alberti)

If what a person makes is completely and profoundly right according to his lights then this work contains the whole man. A work which falls short of this content, is only of passing value and lends itself to arbitrariness and fragmentation. (Richard Diebenkorn)

When using colors to recreate a general harmony of tones in nature, one loses it by painfully exact imitation. One keeps it by recreating in an equivalent color range, and that may not be exactly, or far from exactly, like the model. (Vincent van Gogh)

The inherent lightness or darkness of a form – its local-tone – is a given quality of all forms. It is affected by, but separate from, the light and dark areas that result from light falling on forms. (Nathan Goldstein)

If you have used colour throughout most of your artistic life, try just black and white... it will take your painting to another dimension where tone and form in all its permutations reign supreme. (David Louis)

A piece of drapery is like a necktie, hot stuff to paint, and one of the easiest things for a painter to kid himself into thinking he can do. Don't be fooled by the color. Go after the shape and character. Hew the forms together with colored tones. (John Sloan)

In the real world there are many tones, from white at one extreme, through a large number of medium tones to black at the other extreme. To achieve a three-dimensional effect on paper you need just three – white, black and medium gray. (Stan Smith)